Public Safety: Postal carrier arrested, suspected of stealing mail

SANTEE: A U.S. Postal Service carrier has been arrested on suspicion of stealing people's mail for the past four years.

A joint investigation by postal inspectors and sheriff's investigators led to the arrest of Allen Joseph Pitman, 54, who worked out of the Santee post office, the Sheriff's Department announced yesterday.

When authorities arrested him Wednesday, they found stolen mail, gift cards, debit cards and money, said sheriff's Sgt. Tom Poulin.

They had watched him complete his route and then arrested him when he was getting into his personal vehicle, Poulin said.

“We collected 30 stolen gift cards on his person when we arrested him,” Poulin said. “He also had seven W-2s and six pieces of mail from Social Security. The detectives found more stolen property at his house.”

Investigators were led to Pitman in January when a Santee resident told authorities the gift card she had mailed to her mother had been stolen, Poulin said.

“We tracked that gift card down to the store where it was used – and there's video of the suspect using it,” Poulin said.

Investigators believe Pitman was stealing mail on his route as far back as 2005, Poulin said.

Authorities are asking people in the Santee area who believe they are missing a gift card and still have the receipt from the original purchase to call the Sheriff's Department at (619) 956-4053. –G.G.

Men with shotgun rob everyone in restaurant

SAN DIEGO: Four men stormed a McDonald's in the Lake Murray neighborhood Sunday night and ordered everyone to the floor at gunpoint before robbing customers and employees and taking money from the registers, San Diego police said.

The robbers, including one carrying a shotgun, went into the restaurant on Lake Murray Boulevard near Navajo Road just before 10 p.m., police said. One of them went person to person and took wallets and cell phones that another man put into a bag. Meanwhile, the others went behind the counter and took cash from the drawers.

They left through a back door and drove away in a light-colored General Motors SUV. They were described as black, wearing black hooded sweat shirts, gloves and bandannas over their faces. –D.B.

ID-theft and burglary ring cracked, deputies say

EAST COUNTY: A car burglary led investigators to a meticulously organized identity-theft and burglary ring with at least 100 victims, sheriff's deputies said yesterday.

Deputies seized hundreds of stolen items and arrested three men and one woman, all from Lakeside.

The investigation began Jan. 30 after a woman's purse was stolen from a car near a Chinese restaurant in Santee.

Investigators traced one of the stolen credit cards to a 29-year-old woman and went to her home Thursday to arrest her. She wasn't home, but her boyfriend, 27, was there. A records check revealed he was a parolee at large, and deputies took him into custody, sheriff's Sgt. Tom Poulin said.

The woman arrived in a stolen car and was arrested, he said.

Inside her home, detectives found a filing system of identity theft, Poulin said. “She would set up files on individuals for whatever info was stolen from them, manila-envelope files,” Poulin said, adding that she used that information to make purchases.